On delving.

I may not be pursing a PhD (right now. Or never.  Or I don’t know.) but I am a researcher.

I learned in graduate school how to evaluate research, consider sources, understand where research may be flawed.

There is no perfect research, but one of the things I truly enjoyed to do was understand why research was bad.  Sample size?  Failure to establish causation?  A flawed set of variables?  Non random samples, lack of control groups, issues with randomization and generalizability?

I’m the type of idiot who really likes that shit.  I like to read research but I also like to look at research critically and find its flaws.

When I approached the concept of international adoption, I spent way more time reading about the failures and challenges of that path as opposed to the rosy, happy-ending stories.

When I journeyed through infertility, I spent a ton of time reading about the worst possible outcomes in an effort to understand and perhaps prevent them.

The same is true with my children’s education.  I have spent far more time reading about homeschooling failures and educational neglect than actually reading about how people really do this.

I sat and read the articles which talk about the new district; the one we are moving to.  The one that just fired 16 more teachers, privatized the school’s security force and clerical staff, cut individual student one-to-one aides, and finally decided to hire a director of curriculum and instruction because they can’t seem to keep the state off their ass due to horribly low test scores and other failing benchmarks.  (Like attendance).

Goddammit, I wish I had known this before.  We’re already committed, we’re already going, and private schools are not an option.  The charter schools are all filled up for the school year.

I’m way too conscientious to send my kids there.  I don’t think I could stand it if I did.

Either that, or I’d put myself in an early fucking grave because I would be fighting with the school every single day.

So, assuming I do not hang myself with a shower curtain beforehand, a-homeschooling-we-will-go, please dear Jesus make it only one school year.  Please don’t sentence me to this for too long.  I can pull it together (without alcohol) only so long.

Dipping my toe into this realm has been an education in a side of society I have never seen.

People get these huge boxes of “curriculum”, a word I am so tired of hearing, it makes me stabby just to write it out, and they describe that day as “a day that rivals Christmas.”

Dude.  What the fuck type of Christmas did you have?  I wasn’t rich or anything but getting a pile of books and shit in NO WAY RIVALS even the worst Christmas I ever had, but ok.  Christmas.  IT’S LIKE CHRISTMAS?  And this is just okay with people?  Christmas day….and curriculum day.

There are videos all over youtube devoted to CURRICULUM.  OMG THAT WORD!

I never even heard of Charlotte Fucking Mason until I started learning about this.  I still do not even know who she is.  Who is this mystery woman who seems to influence so many homeschooling family’s choices?  (I could google it.  I just refuse to. And I know more about her than I’m letting on but honestly I can’t bear to even write about it.)

Literature based. Unit based.  Mastery based.  Secular.  Faith based.  Living book based.  Textbook based.  Online.  Cyber academy.  Workbook based.  Notebooking based.  Hands on.  Unschooling.  Montessori.  Waldorf inspired.  Classical.  Co-ops.  NO co-ops. Using manipulatives.  NOT using manipulatives.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY? 

Do people know how fucking FUCKED UP going through this shit actually is?

I mean, are there people that go through and look for information to understand the educational philosophy, assess their strengths and weaknesses as an educator, and consider their child’s needs?

Some probably do but I also know that there are some who just pick Popular Curriculum A and throw it at their kids.  Bingo, homeschool.  They make videos about this process and then later they make videos on why they switched curriculums in the middle of the year (THAT FUCKING WORD AGAIN) and God, can you imagine being a kid in that situation?

This starts talking about educational neglect, and oh yes it’s a thing.  Some parents scream about their “right” to educate their child as they please and hey, I’m with you on that except your kid has rights too and they deserve a quality education.  If you can provide that, fantastic.  If you can’t, then it’s your job to make sure they get it and HOLY SHIVER ME TIMBERS that might include….say it with me! PUBLIC SCHOOL!

Hopefully they do not live in a derelict school district like I’m about to move to.

Sometimes, as I watch these videos…and there are so many.  Most are not even entertaining!  Most are – largely women – prattling on about the homeschool fair they went to; and here, check out these workbooks, and oh see my sparkling clean bedroom?  And yes, of course you can watch one of our homeschooling classes where my little cherubs are dutifully completing whatever they’ve been given and oh my stars, there’s  a coffee cup here on the counter, see how insane and out of control my life is?  THIS IS REAL LIFE YALL!

There’s cat puke in the corner of my carpet and a film growing inside of my sink that I’m pretty sure could be cultured for new micro organisms but NO REALLY, tell me about your coffee cup.

I digress.

I watch these videos and…mostly they are useless.  Some are made by women who clearly struggle with anything beyond basic language skills; who freely admit that they “can’t do math” (how will you teach it?) and giggle when they talk about how they rarely grade anything and “homeschool this year basically consisted of watching these videos and tossing workbooks at the kids.”

There’s this pervasive feeling out there that adults have rights, but somehow kids really don’t, and so if Mom is knocked up and homeschool took a big hit this year, well, there’s always next year.

Don’t kids have a right to a quality education?  Is there a way to balance the rights of parents to educate their children (Hey I support that!) while acknowledging the rights of children to a good education?

I wonder about that sometimes.

This society of “individual right” (usually adult’s rights) is sometimes unsettling.  A society where children are property instead of human beings to guide and empower to be their best….I don’t always see it.

It’s kind of like people who say that some parents are neglectful because they don’t insist on torturing babies who are going to die from extreme prematurity; that they are somehow “less than” or “should feel guilty” or “have done something wrong because they didn’t shove useless tubes and needles and medications into those kids; who believes it’s better to hurt those babies instead of honor them.  (Yes. I see what I did there.)  Like, you are somehow judged as a good parent or a bad one based on how many IVs you made the hospital run, or how many machines you attached to your child,  and how much pain you inflicted on them, pretending you were going to help them when you should be smart enough to know (or smart enough to listen to those smarter than you) that that isn’t going to happen.

Snatchy McSnatcherson.

Wasn’t I talking about homeschooling? I was.

Kids deserve a good education, and if parents can’t provide it, then quit clutching your pearls and send them somewhere that will give them what they deserve.

Since I don’t have that option, I get to fry my brain trying to determine what will actually ensure my kids learn precisely what they are supposed to next year.

Pray I don’t get up in my bathroom with the shower curtain wrapped around my neck.

I’m off to clean my sink.